"Unnecessary… but understandable," Zora concluded. She let out a small sigh of relief and turned to the human, who had just observed the whole thing. He was trembling and speechless, staring wide eyed at Zora as she approached him.
(do you want to be the human character? Also, how does the whole soul stealing thing work in this RP?)
Richard Ericsson was not a coward.
That being said, he had never expected to stare down someone talking so casually about his demise. He shrunk away from the two beings—the reapers—with dread collecting in his stomach. That’s what they had called themselves, but it didn’t seem possible. Reapers were the beasts of fairytales. They wore black robes, carried scythes, and had skulls for faces. None were supposed to look like regular human beings.
His shoulders shook as he hit a wall behind him. Tears had begun to roll, hot and salty, down to the ground. He didn’t want to die. He hadn’t meant to run, or whatever the guy was talking about, but there was no way he’d willingly face his death.
“Don’t hurt me, please,” he begged in a wavering voice, “I swear that I’ll give you whatever you want. Do you want money? I don’t have much, but I’ll give you what I’ve got. You can have my car, too!”
Zora sighed, clicking her tongue and stepping forward. This man was more stubborn than she thought, but she wasn't going to give up. This was her mistake, she had to fix it. "Mr. Ericcson," she started, her tone much softer than before. "Believe me, I wish I didn't have to do this, but like it or not it's part of my job. Your soul is required, and unfortunately, there's no way around that."
“You can’t do that! You can’t do- I have two kids! My grandchild just turned four! You can’t kill me, please d-“
“She’s right. One way or another, Mr. Ericsson, we’re getting your soul. Only difference is that she’ll do it gently,” Valen stated flatly, tapping the handle of his sword “and I’ll do it with a sword. The choice is up to you.”
“This is fake! That’s what this is, it must be. This is some sort of sick joke by my ex-wife.”
“Your ex? No, I’m afraid not.” He glanced towards the girl. “Do as you must. I’m getting tired of this.”
Zora sighed. This man was seriously impatient. "I'm going to need more than a few seconds to talk to him about this. He's human and he's terrified, try to be a bit more sympathetic." She then turned back to the human. "I understand you're upset and confused, but there's no way we could reverse this even if we wanted to. Besides, this isn't as bad as you think it is. It's painless, as long as you cooperate."
Valen, bored, tired, and stiff, nearly groaned. He patted his dog’s head to signal that it should move forward. Onisk swept his tail around as it paced towards them, shaking up snow from cracks. He opened his sharply toothed mouth in a yawn.
“I don’t know what the big deal is. He was supposed to die, but whatever. I guess we’ll have to do this the long way.” He smiled irritably at the other man. “You’re a very, very lucky man. I wouldn’t have taken half this long.”
Ericsson wasn’t paying attention. His eyes were glued to Zora like she was the last person in the world.
“I’ve thought it before, dying. It really doesn’t hurt? I… my parents just died. I don’t want to leave my family, I really don’t, but it’s been hard. I think… is it selfish if I say I’m ready to see them again? Is that selfish?”
Zora had decided to ignore Valen at this point. He was getting on her nerves, and making her lose focus, so she kept all of her attention on the human. "Of course that's not selfish. A lot of people feel the same way," she explained, stepping forward slowly as she spoke. "Mr. Ericcson… I know you're under a lot of stress, but you don't have a lot of time left before this… difficult reaper loses his patience."
Valen barely managed to stop himself from groaning aloud. “You could at least call me by my name. I do have one, you know. Maybe you’ve even heard of me. That’d make me a bit terrible at my job, though.”
“I… I think I understand.” Nervously, and still ignoring Val, Richard bit his lip and fidgeted with the sleeve of his shirt. “How are you going to do it? And… my kids. What will they hear? Will they see it as a murder? I don’t want that. Do you have something planned? Could you do a heart attack or something?”
(heyyyyy how is the whole soul taking thing going to work?)
(Didn’t you say you wanted her to touch them and take their soul? I’m imagining the body left over would be the thing humans consider a corpse, and that when reapers take a soul they usually make it so that it looks like a reasonable death, like a severe aneurysm or something.)
(oh shoot I did say that, huh? okay that makes sense sorry I forgot
also I'm going to sleep in a couple of minutes)
"I'm not interested in who you are. Your name is unimportant to me," Zora said to Valen, glancing over at him for barely a second before returning her gaze to Ericsson. "Yes, making it seem like a heart attack or something similar is possible. All I have to do is touch you, but I can only take your soul if you let me."
Ericsson put his head between his hands. He took in a shuddering breath, wheezed, and made his choice.
“I’ll do it. My kids will miss me, sure, but they’ve moved on. I’m no longer the only person that they depend on. I’ve never had much luck at romance. If you’re telling the truth, then it’s my time to go. It’s probably been my time for a while now.”
Valen felt something shift in him. He squared his shoulders and dropped his gaze to the ground. In his line of work, it wasn’t every day that a human surprised him. Honestly, it’d been a while since he’d felt anything at all towards his victims. They often didn’t deserve pity.
“What I’m saying is yes, you can take my soul. I’ll give it willingly.”
(hey any chance we could move this RP to PMs?)
(Oh? Sure, why?)
(I'm just kinda trying to disappear from notebook.ai publically lol)
(Oh??? Oh no??? Why??)
(There are a lot of toxic people I don’t want to deal with right now so I’m just going to lay low until everyone mellows out)
(Toxic people?)
(People who give bad vibes and spread lots of negativity)
(Oh ok we can do this in pm then)
(Kk. You wanna make the pm or should I?)
(Idk how so…)
(okay lol don't worry, I'll do it)
(Wait it's not letting me send you a PM… have you chosen a username yet?)